Study Guide for Tetsuya Takahashi's Xenoverse
"... humans are truly unusual living beings ... like shattered fragments of a mirror."
 

Introduction:
 A BRIEF OVERVIEW
 NEW TO XENO?

Xenogears:
 MAIN
 PLOT ANALYSIS
 TRANSLATION GUIDE
 GLOSSARY

Xenosaga series:
 MAIN
 PLOT ANALYSIS
 DATABASE

Advanced analysis:
 THE UNIVERSE
 STORY ANALYSIS
 CHARACTERS

More:
 ARTICLES & ESSAYS
 HISTORY OF XENO
 FANDOM

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A guide to the complex incomplete masterpiece, Tetsuya Takahashi's epic Xenoverse, XENOGEARS and XENOSAGA.

1998-2006
Tetsuya Takahashi's Xenogears and Xenosaga series is one of the grandest epics in the annals of imaginative story-telling, and gaming's, and science fiction's answer to Russian literature; a brilliant existential science fiction epic of high adventure, enormous cast of characters, commentaries on religion, ideology, philosophy, science and psychology, with immense scope, leaving The Lord of the Rings and the much praised Dune science fiction series far behind.

Rash and reckless, a young 30-year-old Takahashi with almost literary and cinematic ambition worked day and night directing his debut RPG title Xenogears back in 1996, filling it to the brink with messages, allegories, religious symbolism, social commentary, esoteric knowledge, psychological themes, romance, giant robots, dinosaurs, his ideal woman, and all the other things he enjoyed, with the sole aim to express himself, leaving exhausted co-workers and overwhelmed gamers in his wake, as he went on to create his own company in order to pursue his relentless drive to produce what might very well have been intended to be the most epic story of all time. And Tetsuya Takahashi left an intriguing legacy to his captivated audience. Welcome to the information center dedicated to the collection and preservation of Xenogears and Xenosaga information as well as in-depth analysis, essays, articles, and study guide on the subject.

This site was created to keep Tetsuya Takahashi's vision of Xenogears and Xenosaga alive, the self-expressive works made by the "young and reckless" Tetsuya Takahashi, and guide new fans through his older but richer and more complex works, their history, and to the man himself.

"When I was younger [making Xenogears and Xenosaga], my sole aim was to express myself. If I enjoyed it, and could give the players a product that reflected my own taste, it was enough if it appealed to those players who understood what I was doing."
- Tetsuya Takahashi


Spoiler warning

If you have yet to play any (or all) of the Xeno games, I advise that you return later. This site is nothing but spoilers and exposes the story of the 'Xenoverse' wide open. I recommend only that you check out the NEW TO XENO? page. Also, the A BRIEF OVERVIEW page and the Tetsuya Takahashi section only have very mild spoilers. It depends on how pure you want to be when you experience these works the first time.

If you have played one of the two works then the individual sections are for you. What is labeled "Advanced analysis" is for those who are familiar with both works.

Although the 'Xenoverse' is told through a series of video games, this site will approach mainly the story and characters, exploring the series as if it were a novel or movie series (which I think the series should have been) therefore you will not find any information regarding the game play on this site.

I decided to make this simple site as a tribute to all things 'Xeno' since Xeno-sites seem to be disappearing from the web and there isn't much information available for newcomers to the series apart from a few message boards and the 'experts' that hang around there and GameFAQs who, like me, are probably tired of repeating the same things over and over to the casual fans who were never privy to all the information revealed during the years. This site is thus an attempt to fill this void of information regarding the Xeno-series and will hopefully be helpfull for both experts, longtime fans and newcomers alike.

 

 

 

TETSUYA TAKAHASHI

HIS LIFE, WORKS, INTERVIEWS, QUOTES
 
NEWS

· 2012.05.17
Added the "History of Xeno" section; which merged the original main articles and the more recent history article written for the Articles section. The content has also been revised to a large extent.

· 2012.04.07
Re-organized the main articles and added several interviews in the Tetsuya Takahashi section.

· 2012.03.17
Xenogears and Xenosaga's respective plot analysis are now complete.

· 2012.02.14
Completed the "Mirroring article" in the Articles section, which compares Xenogears and Xenosaga and tries to figure out how much Xenosaga followed the original scenario.

News Archive